I will say again, there should be a section of the website (and a copy in the media team pack) dedicated to explaining how to set up and use the various mod loaders for PC games (Mania and S&KC count too!), and also links to all the MSVC x86 redists from 2010-2017. Streamers should verify that the mods work before they start streaming (even just checking the mod loader's debug log would suffice), and they should be made aware of any nonstandard prerequisites or setup procedures (eg Lantern Engine, Physics Swap).

This is a good idea and will be looked at for next year, especially for the non-3D stuff too as I'm sure some people would like to see some recommended emulators as well on the page.

I am also going to get a separate setup box that people can fill in next year for anything additionally that they'd need to do in order to play the game, so these issues do show up.

Also, usually the media panel are given a download pack with all the entries and text files with what's on the entry pages. Unfortunately given that it was a new site that a lot of stuff wasn't implemented, the text files weren't included, but they will for next year.

The contest this year was exciting and well-advertised. I gave more than 1/2 the entries a good test run and found an annoying common issue in all-but one that I tried (which did not win top trophy but, thankfully, took another prize): they were all unfinished.

Everyone seemed to have a fine level one, but then came the broken levels and infinite loops, the unfinished levels, horrible block noise, and other programmer's-worst-nightmare-type things. One submission gave me a three-byte error code when it broke! And only one featured a debug screen upon startup--a real asset for a QA tester (thanks! by the way...) For 2018, y'all ought to require submissions to be substantially complete.

For one thing, how do you define "substantially complete"? It may take several years for a hacker to be able to fully flesh out their ideas, and in that time, they may become unable or unwilling to work on it further.

Perhaps what people could do is create special demo builds for the contest that block off areas that are not yet completed (something I've done myself in the past) and impose a 1-minute time limit, just to be safe.

That, and it sucks to get shit on by contest staff who misunderstand prerequisites and accuse me of "just showing off [my] technical prowess" live, on-stream.

I'm definitely concerned about that and would ask you to report it to Spanner immediately if that was the case on where and when it happened.

The first problem, is that Donnie decided he needed to read out the list of prerequisites for the mod on stream, which was completely unnecessary. The second problem, is that Super Egg decided that "d3d8to9" just meant "directx" and Morph was just using technical terms to show off. The third problem is that when I clarified in the stream chat, I got told that "nobody cares".

No, that was a clear assumption. That's really just what got things going though.

Quote

Because [...] language jargon

Sure, I believe you (honestly). You were actually the least of my concern there to be honest; originally I couldn't tell who was talking as I was doing other things while listening. But nice way to respond, I guess?

I'm with Morph on this one. The instructions of his entry page are pretty clear and concise on what needs to be done, so there was no need for assumptions that'd just complicate the setup further. There's also hardly any technical jargon there, that's just the name of the program. Nobody takes kindly to jokes on frustrating situations like that, so context is important.

Let's just agree to get the media panel to do the troubleshooting first for the more complex entries if possible and all of this should go much more smoothly next year.

Yeah, with Morph's mod it is pretty easy to load up. I screwed up in the trailer because of two reasons:

1) I didn't get given any instructions and I was on a strict time limit (yes, I now know there's a SRetro topic here but I didn't know at the time)
2) I loaded up every mod from the mod loader by Morph... not realising the Lantern Engine was under the author "hax" so I never loaded it properly! Being a lighting modification, I thought I was just being blind and went with it.
3) I didn't know about the d3d8to9 thing at the time either.

When the contest started and I saw the instructions and noticed it was under "hax". I loaded it up and all was good. And I kept my promise by showcasing the Lantern Engine first on my stream

Yep, that's about what I expected, Clownacy, Dario FF, and TwilightZoney are the only judges who judged all four of the PC-based entries. At least they had a lot to say about each of them. I find it amusing that Selbi apparently does not own a PC with which to play the PC port of Sonic 2 though. Yes, I know he meant he didn't have a 3DS, but that's a flimsy excuse when there's a PC version available also.

And then there's Mania mods being universally sidelined to the expo, when in any other year, or in any other game, something like Aurora Garden would have been allowed into the contest without question.

Just to add some context to my evaluations, here's the order I judged the entries in:

Sonic Chaos Quest Ultimate

Sonic 1: Colors Edition (SHC2017 Demo)

Sonic Double Dash

Sonic & Ashuro

SADX Lantern Engine

Achi (AKA another trend in gaming that is slightly annoying and ultimately pointless)

Sonic 1 - Comet Edition v2.1

Mr. Cat's 16 day challenge!

A Rushed Sonic Hack

Sonic 1 Dragon Edition

Sonic 3 Chaos Adventure

Sonic Legacy

Classic Pantufa the Cat DX

Sonic 2: Zen Island

A generic Sonic 1 ROMhack

Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine - DX Edition

Heroes Mod Loader & Tweakbox (Tech Demo)

Sonic Redux (Character Demo)

Tails Adventure X-L

Metal Sonic Rebooted

Sonic Egg Factory ReMastered

Sonic 1 Back to South Island (SHC17 Demo)

Sonic Halloween

I used a random number generator to select which hack to judge next. The idea is that, in my experience, a judge will get more tired and harder to impress as they play more entries, so I may be too easy on early entries (probably Sonic Chaos Quest Ultimate), and too harsh on later ones (especially Metal Sonic Rebooted). Same goes for evaluation length: Chaos Quest got a pretty massive one, but they got shorter as I went through the rest of the entries. Playing in a random order meant I at least wasn't putting certain hacks at a disadvantage because of where they lied in alphabetical order.

Hopefully this list will put a few things into perspective, and explain any inconsistencies.